


haunting you (i'm onto you)

by chasingpatterns



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ghost Len, M/M, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9626087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingpatterns/pseuds/chasingpatterns
Summary: Len is always there for Mick, whether he realizes it or not.––Consistent up until 2x09.





	

Gideon monitors Mick as he lies in stasis and notes imbalances and leftovers of the Time Masters’ work on him. In xir incapacitated state xe can’t do much for Mr. Rory until the ship is in full working condition again, but what xe finds is consistent with depression and a cocktail of other things that weren’t there before Mr. Snart’s passing. Xe does what xe can, waiting for the time to wake again.

* * *

Being left behind by the Green Arrow (or Mayor Queen of Star City – which one is more jarring, he doesn’t know) in some time ship with a guy that looks like he eats bricks for breakfast isn’t an experience Nate thought he’d be crossing off his bucket list. Even as a hemophiliac historian with a penchant for the great wide somewhere, as you do, he’s a tad bit shaken up. He’s impressed, at spending seventy five years at the bottom of the ocean, that the ship can even power the fridge and is reasonably weary of everything else. Things are a bit scattered right now. He’s just holding on for dear life.

Him and the big guy, Rory, Mick if the display is to be believed, are now faced with a mission to save the rest of the “legends” and… man. Maybe getting dumped on this ship wasn’t on his bucket list, but flying a time ship aligns with the rest pretty nicely. Besides, with Rory coming out of stasis after seven and a half decades, he’s probably more fit to fly this thing

Nate makes a single move towards the control panels before he catches someone in the corner of his eye, _specifically_ in the corner. If he tries to look directly he can’t see him anymore. From what he can tell, he’s a tall guy, solid but thin or lithe, rather, glaring at him like he could end him in a second. He freezes. There’s already some weird ass shit going on, but he definitely knows him and Rory are the only ones on deck. The man tips his head towards his burly companion and somehow Nate understands what he means. 

“Are you uh, sure you can fly this thing?”

Rory takes the controls. “Let’s find out.”

It’s not exactly what he wanted to hear. He sees the man’s face pinch up at this too, unreadable expression on his face as Nate straps in. He’ll ask about the man later.

(He forgets.)

* * *

It’s weird how the cold gun feels alive in his hands. Levels of him, loud levels, are mentally picking apart the gun to its parts and physics and Cisco’s calculations, aesthetics, and literal blood, sweat, and tears thanks to the very man that gave it to him; quieter levels of him feel wrong. He didn’t lose sleep over it, of course, and in the end it was his friend who made it, but even Cisco would have to admit eventually – it’s Snart’s gun. It doesn’t stop him from feeling awkward about it, and only retracts when Mick snaps at him for wanting to tinker with it, which, what? He’s Ray Palmer. He’s got four PhDs. His entire life is tinkering.

_Be like Snart. Cool._ Okay. He can do that. He can _so_ do that, because he’s Ray Palmer and he invented cool. He just has to do it in the Snart way, and he’ll be good at it too, or is. So much so that he can almost… see Snart?

He’s leaning against a shelving unit, judging his every move, and Ray’s waiting for some acerbic but admittedly clever slight against him, _Raymond_ , to roll off his tongue. O… kay.

He hauls up the cold gun, gripping it with both hands and therefore grasping it securely. He then slinks over to the doorway and copies Mind-Snart’s actions, hip jut out and tipping his head up. He narrows his eyes. Snart narrows them back.

“What are you doing?” 

Ray doesn’t relinquish the glare, childish as it is. Cold started it, anyways.

“Trying to be cool.”

“Maybe this was a bad idea.”

He looks back at Mick and he’s already blinked Snart away.

* * *

Mid-battle it’s hard to concentrate. A lot of things are happening all at once; enemies coming left and right as well as projectiles and debris. On top of it all, Gray is talking in his head. He has to be a little selective of what he can focus on. Jax moves to an aerial view trying to get the target so they can leave and Gray yells to warn him about shots aimed towards him. He dodges best he can, but something in him is telling him to stay still. Jax begins to slow his flight.

Gray’s alarmed voice gets louder and more insistent, but Jax stays on course, and he can’t explain why.

“Jefferson, we are not bulletproof, even while merged – ”

“Hold on, Gray, I know what I’m doin’.”

Frankly, he doesn’t. However, he’s always been the type to follow his heart and his gut, and this feeling can’t be shaken. It’s not the feeling he got urging him to join FIRESTORM, nor the one that won him games back in varsity football, but it’s something else. He can’t name it, but it’s definitely there.

Below, he spots the shooter, and then Mick ramming into him. The spray of bullets already left the gun but the course changed – just where Jax almost went to dodge. It’s in this moment he realizes this all happened within a matter of seconds. He lets out a breath.

“See? I told you. I know what I’m doing.” Again, he didn’t. But it’s always nice to put Gray in his place from time to time. The feeling turns to fondness and relief, not just from the professor. Jax feels the need to nod to Mick before he flies off again.

“Mr. Rory won’t always be there to - to knock our enemies away.”

He manages to wave him off for a moment.

“Yeah, yeah, we still got a fight to worry about.”

* * *

This is his thesis film. He’s been working on it since the semester started, but he’s starting to step back and edit. His cast, he realizes, is far too large. 

Of course, the idea of having an ensemble cast is always a challenging one, but he’d gone into it with ambition and determination that he, Phil Gasmer, could figure it out. He’d singled out Rip, Sandra, and Max to be primary protagonists because he isn’t completely self-destructive, but now he’s looking at the secondary cast and wondering if he is, maybe, juggling too much.

Dismayed, he looks up from drowning in his characters to see who he can cut. If he thinks about it, there is a character or two, rather, that don’t seem to fit the bill as easily or as seamlessly as the rest. The amount of growth the two of them would have to make in what’s supposed to be a ninety minute film might make the picture too busy, overcrowded… but for some reason something’s captivating him in these two.

Phil’s running a hand through his hair, feeling how crisp it’s gotten from gel and how he’s really gotta return to the world, take a shower for once, but shoots a frazzled look at his script outline. Maybe he can get rid of one. The other one even has an almost kinship with one of his leads, Sandra, so it wouldn’t be so much of a stretch to only include him.

He clicks the pen on his teeth and goes to cross the one out, already twisting the storylines and murmuring to himself how he can edit it, but something in him goes cold at the thought. The pen tip doesn’t make so much as a dot before he’s retracted it again, putting his screenplay away and headed to take a damn shower. The arsonist stays.

He’ll figure something out. His mind goes to a bright flash and choice last words.

* * *

It can be said that Sara’s grief is wrapped in Leonard too, but Laurel is more than grief. Laurel is despair, soul wrenching and heavy sobs. Laurel is more than a loss. She doesn’t want to remember salt and pepper hair and a deck of cards kept carefully tucked away under her mattress. Not when all of her is ripped to shreds knowing that some time out there, while Sara was on a ship somewhere, her sister died.

Last time this happened, Sara was the one that was supposed to die. History, _ha_ , history tells her time and time again that she won’t be managing that, at least staying that way. Everyone else, however, is managing just fine. 

Sara is good at compartmentalizing, though. She can pinch off every emotion until she’s thicker than any metal or any wall, but it makes her deadly. Blind rage like she hasn’t felt since the pit is easily urging her into the front lines, barely being able to restrain herself from making unwise decisions, but every time she holds herself back instead of feeling like she’s done the right thing, it tastes like betrayal. Laurel deserved better than this. Sara is done letting her down.

Damien Darhk won’t be in Bumfuck Old West, but Hex is, and now she’s fighting down wanting to look for Rip, because Rip is their last shot of salvaging someone, for once. Sara takes a slow inhale. She didn’t sign up to escape anyone or anything, but the cost of taking a breath to herself is getting increasingly higher.

They’ve barely walked onto the street when Mick’s already itching to get away from them, and she’s on her last thread of patience. She doesn’t see ghosts, but she does get a pang of fear and longing and suddenly she’s reaching into her coat and fishing out a wad of fabricated bills.

“Have yourself a good time,” she finds herself saying, and the heavy feeling on her chest lifts an inch. Another beat, and she sends Amaya in too.

Now to do the job Rip left them.

* * *

She knows she’s always found it difficult to warm up to people, but when she did, she spent the time chasing after the time before it, making sure the people she considered a friend knew it – even if it does take a nudge of mutual understanding. With Rory, now Mick, it’d been an unexpected development, but she can’t remember having this much fun since, well… Ever. Especially after Rex’s death at the hands of some time traveling speedster, where she thought she’d be on a justice-fueled linear mission to arrest the man and return to her time, this came to be a pleasant surprise. The only thing that seemed to make it better was that Mick, who looked equally if not more miserable after what she would learn later was the passing of his partner, seemed to be having just as much fun as she was having.

When Amaya makes a friend, she has to make sure they know it.

She gave him a ninja star as an apology gift, but it’s not the same. She’s poking around Capone’s warehouse in something she’d seen her mother wear in a well-loved photo trying to remember every piece of Chicago she can even if this isn’t quite a postcard setting, when she sees the eyes. She’s seen them before. They always seem to point to Mick, a level of pain to them. She’d taken to following their instructions, after all she’s always been more attuned to spirits. This time the eyes bring her to an innocent looking box, with a not so innocent bottle of liquor in it. She tucks it away and the eyes are gone again.

Well, he does seem to like his alcohol. It might be nice, even with the fabricator, something’s a little better about having a real drink. Plus, this one has CHICAGO plastered all over the label. Souvenir.

* * *

He’ll admit to being a prideful man, often reluctant to come to terms with the less savory parts of his personality, but he knows he hasn’t been the biggest fan of Mr. Rory from the start. He knows the man was ready to die for the team, and has stood for them time and time again, but then he thinks back to his record and can’t help but keep him at a distance. However, with the previous thought in mind, Martin can manage to help him, even if aided by the threat to kill him. After all, trying to cut into what makes the arsonist the way he is could potentially be interesting and, well – he’s never performed brain surgery before. It’s always good to get new experiences.

Martin doesn’t really know why he dismissed the idea of Mr. Snart coming back at all, or he does, because it’s logical and a man of science and truly, fragmenting Mr. Snart across time… Now, he hasn’t been the closest with Mr. Rory, but getting his hopes up on an improbable in-moment theory, is truly despicable. The split second of hopeful clarity that bloomed across the man’s face… He had his regrets. But now he has to allow him to heal, and the first step is acceptance, because the images he’s seeing of his partner simply aren’t real.

And as he swears he can feel a presence with them as he tells it, he relies on his rationale.

* * *

“You’re my best friend.”

Mick stares down the image, his BAC far lower than it could be, but he still has his hand clasped laxly around a bottle of beer. His tolerance was always high, but Snart’s been watching him get it steadily higher with that look that makes him look like he’s a bird whose feathers he’d ruffled. Right now, however, Snart’s doing that thing where he tips his head like he isn’t trying to listen closer. For Lenny he might as well be on the edge of his seat, and Mick kind of wants to laugh. He would, but he’s determined to get this out. The one thing he didn’t get to when Snart was alive, and what didn’t feel right at 2013.

“I love you, man.”

To his surprise, through the haze he swears he can see him get that weird shiny look crossing on his face that he only sees in rare moments. He starts to swing forward in his chair to examine it more closely before the professor busts in, and suddenly Mick can’t seem to shut the fuck up.

Later on, he’ll realize that’s the kindest the hallucination’s been to him.

**Author's Note:**

> To the tune of No Diggity: no beta-ing…
> 
> Anyways if you’re wondering how it worked with Rip, so am I. This was written the day I watched the new episode and before I saw it. It's technically still canon compliant but it's weird writing Phil when Rip is now... this. But god DAMN the episode was great though, right?
> 
> [tumblr.](http://chasingpatterns.tumblr.com/)


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